Curtis Park project featured in Cisneros book

Denver’s Villages of Curtis Park is held up as a shining example of a public housing project that breathed life into a decaying inner-city neighborhood in a new book co-edited by former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros.
“From Despair to Hope documents the evolution of Hope VI, a federal program that promotes mixed-income housing integrated with services and amenities to replace the economically and socially isolated public housing complexes of the past,” according to the book’s cover.
Using a $25.8 million grant awarded in 1998, the Villages of Curtis Park replaced 286 public housing units with 135 public housing rental units, 94 tax-credit rental units and 94 market-rate rental units. An additional 257 for-sale homes also were built, according to a chapter written by project designer Peter Calthorpe of Berkeley Calif.
Calthorpe made several design changes, including orienting entrances to the street rather than inward, to ensure the neighborhood’s walkability and safety.
“The marriage between New Urbanism and Hope VI has been central to the mission of restoring public housing,” Calthorpe concludes.

What a farce.
I used to work in the Curtis Park area for two years and witnessed the building of these units.
In order for this article to actually be truthful, they would have needed to build twice the amount of units they are touting here.
Curtis park was, is and remains a haven for dope pushers, alcoholics, and pimps pimping out of their vans.
Sure sounds like they cleaned up this neighborhood really well.